HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!

St. Joseph is the patron saint of fathers, and the ideal saint to feature for Father’s Day.  As the step father of Jesus, the Messiah, and the husband of Mary, the Blessed Mother, Joseph stands out as the father above all other fathers in the New Testament.  It was an indescribable honor for him to stand in for God the Father to bring up the Son of God.  In order to respond to such a high calling, Joseph lived an exemplary life, and set the standard for every father who came after him.  We pray to St. Joseph for all our fathers so that his intercession will renew them to strive to live their vocation well.

CORPUS CHRISTI

The Feast of Corpus Christi, or the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, goes back to the 13th century, but it celebrates something far older: the institution of the Sacrament of Holy Communion at the Last Supper. For centuries after the celebration was extended to the universal Church, the feast was also celebrated with a Eucharistic procession, in which the Sacred Host was carried throughout the town, accompanied by hymns and litanies. The faithful would venerate the Body of Christ as the procession passed by.

            While the Feast of Corpus Christi is one of the ten Holy Days of Obligation in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, in some countries, including the United States, the feast has been transferred to the following Sunday (after Trinity Sunday).